On “Part-Time Faculty Leadership Institutes”

by VanessaVaile

I am writing this essay at the mild urging of long-time adjunct activist, Vanessa Vaille.

As time drifts into the middle of summer, for those adjuncts who have neither scored a class or been financially compelled to do so, the US Higher Ed system as well entered into that time period that the vast majority of adjuncts know of as the “unemployment zone.” For many of us, it is that time when you usually watch your dollars carefully, and if you’re lucky, survive on unemployment checks, and if you’re not, hope that you can get by without selling plasma or the what not, which I had to do as a graduate teaching assistant at SDSU one summer (and guess what? I was working 40 hours a week as a custodian but my paycheck was deferred until mid-August).